The Twentieth International Conference
on Solid Waste Technology and Management

April 3 - 6, 2005Philadelphia, PAU.S.A.

Abstract:New York City’s
recycling program has undergone numerous changes in recent years, and with
this, major fluctuations in recycling diversion rate.Participation in the program also varies
considerably from neighborhood to neighborhood.In 2004 the City released a 20-year Solid Waste Management Plan that
proposed a goal of 70% diversion by 2015, but at that time diversion was only
16%, haven fallen from 20% as a result of the four changes that had occurred in
the City’s recycling program between July, 2002 and April, 2004.

Why is there a gap between actual and desired diversion
rates and how can it be closed?Surveys
are useful in assessing attitudes towards recycling, and evaluating the type
and degree to which barriers exist which prevent or dissuade residents from participating
in the recycling program.Prior research
established that certain demographics are highly correlated with diversion rate
(i.e., income, educational level, race/ethnic, and female headed
households).This paper postulates some other
reasons for the disparity between recycling and non-recycling neighborhoods in
recycling participation using thousands of surveys collected by students in
parts of the City that have the highest and lowest participation in the
recycling program.Among the variables
evaluated are understanding of the recycling program, recycling convenience,
attractiveness of building’s recycling environment, reasons for not recycling
more, nearby street cleanliness, and home ownership.

New York City’s
recycling program began in 1988 with pilot programs deployed in different parts
of the City at different times collecting different recyclables.In 1993 the City unified its program,
collecting metals, glass, plastic jugs and bottles, newspaper, magazines and
corrugated cardboard citywide.In 1996
mixed paper, bulk metal, grey cardboard, and waxed paper cartons were
added.In 1998 the City Council passed a
local law to require weekly collection.[1]By June, 2002, the Citywide curbside and
containerized total diversion rate for recyclables was 19.0% of the entire
waste stream, and its capture rate of targeted recyclables averaged 44.2%. [2]
(The City targeted almost half the waste stream at that time, based on a 1990
waste composition study.[3])The low capture rate means that over 55% of
the recyclables was thrown out with the trash.

But in July, 2002 the City’s recycling program began to
regress.The City stopped collecting
plastics and glass, then a year later reinstated plastics and changed
collection frequency to every other week, and then restored glass and weekly
collections in April, 2004.Immediately
after plastic and glass stopped being collected, data showed that paper
collections had also gone down by 12.7% (from June to September 2002) [4].When the City changed the program from weekly
to once every two weeks, this angered some residents and building
superintendents, who were now forced to store recyclables for an additional
week.Meanwhile, in many parts of the
City, garbage collections continued at three times per week, with twice a week
in the rest of the City.

Since April, 2004, when glass was restored to the recycling
program and recyclables were again collected weekly, the diversion rate has
been close to 16 to 17% most of the time (January, 2005 figures show 16.2% for
citywide curbside and containerized total diversion)[5] or
85% of the recycling rate of June, 2002.Perhaps the lost diversion is, in part, due to those disaffected by the
City’s lack of commitment to recycling or simply confusion about what to
recycle or when.

In October, 2004 the Department of Sanitation (DOS) released
its latest draft Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan, to cover a 20-year
time frame.Goals of 25% diversion of
residential recyclables through curbside collection by 2007 and 70% recycling
diversion rate for the City’s combined residential and commercial waste stream
by 2015 were proposed.Also stated were
goals for a stable, 20-year, curbside program for collecting recyclable paper
and metals, glass and plastics, as well as a greater awareness of, and
participation in, recycling efforts. [6]

Educational Programs
to Inform Recycling

Early in the history of the
recycling program, DOS began issuing educational materials to residents
primarily via mailed brochures, once every few years on average.A few cable TV and radio spots, billboards
and subway ads were also done, intermittently and a school-based recycling
curriculum was issued.New York City
has special challenges with a population including speakers from hundreds of
nationalities, with 25 major languages spoken and many more minor ones.Incomes vary with 20% of residents living
below the poverty level, with a majority (60%) with incomes between $15,000 and
$75,000.Only about 9% of homes are
single-family detached and over 30% are apartment buildings with 50 or more
units.[7]Communicating knowledge of what to recycle and
imparting motivation is clearly important to achieving high diversion
rates.Since 1988, DOS has issued
recycling information in both English and Spanish.DOS placed ads in Spanish papers, as it is
required by local law (19 of 1989) to reach every person in the city with
recycling education.At its heyday in
the late 1990s, prior to cuts in recycling service started in July, 2002,
recycling information was distributed in many languages, including Hebrew,
Yiddish, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Polish as well as Spanish in an attempt to
get to the populations in which these languages are exclusively spoken.Pictures of recyclable and non-recyclable
materials were featured to increase understanding.Educational materials were sent to every part
of the city including apartments.However,
the City spends on average 81 cents per person annually on recycling education
vs. over $3 in San Francisco, which
has a 50% diversion rate.[8]

Enforcement Programs to Motivate Recycling

Since the beginning of its
recycling programs, DOS has followed a 2-prong strategy to get New Yorkers to recycle:education and enforcement.The City considered that people would
recycle if they knew what was expected of them and if there was threat of a
fine for not recycling.However, as with
many such programs in New York, the
enforcement program has been administered unevenly.At first, the City would not fine anyone for
putting recyclables in black bags with garbage.Initially there were reports of fines to single-family homes fines for
not recycling at all or putting garbage with recyclables, but not the
converse.In apartment buildings, fines
were issued mainly for not having the correct signage.In the late 1990s the city began to fine for
recyclables in black bags, but only rarely and only in single-family
dwellings.Comparatively little enforcement
attention was given to apartments other than pertaining to signage.Recycling regulations were not specific on
the quantity of recycling containers or frequency of emptying them.

Specifically, as regards
sufficient recycling capacity in buildings the codes state that the recycling
storage area must be maintained and designated recyclables stored so as not to
create a nuisance or sanitary problem.Also, the building owner must provide a sufficient number of bins in
each storage area to prevent containers from spilling over.16 RCNY §1-08(f) (2)Fine $25.Repeat recycling violations are $50 for the 2nd violation,
$100 for the third, and $500 for the fourth within a six-month period.Buildings with ten or more apartments that
receive four or more violations within a six-month period can be fined $500 for
each bag that violates recycling requirements, up to a maximum of 20 bags
within a 24-hour period. This translates
to a maximum fine of $10,000 per day.[9]While this sounds impressive, the Sanitation
department has not enforced but a tiny fraction of the possible violations for
buildings not recycling, for putting garbage in recycling bags, and vice versa,
lack of signage, unsanitary conditions in the recycling area, or insufficient
recycling containers.Clearly, if 55% of
recyclables are in the trash, and if every building placing recyclables in
garbage bags were fined for every such bag, it wouldn’t take long before many
buildings would either be paying $10,000 per day or enacting procedures within
their buildings to improve correct collection of recyclables.

NYC DOS
Research- Recycling Rates in different
NYC neighborhoods

If the people in all NYC did
understand what to recycle, one might logically expect for all neighborhoods to
have similar, high recycling (diversion) rates.But there is very large disparity in
recycling rates across the city, from below 10% to above 30% [10].Of the total 59 community board / sanitation
districts, the 12 districts with the lowest diversion rates are in the South
and Central Bronx (7 districts), Harlem
(2 districts), and minority communities in Brooklyn.On the other end of the spectrum, the 12
districts with the highest diversion rates are in midtown and downtown
Manhattan, Brooklyn’s Park Slope, upscale – much like the upper west side of
Manhattan, posh residential areas of outer Queens, and eastern Bronx.Earlier research showed that there is strong
correlation (r > .8 at extremely low p) between low educational level, low
income, black/Hispanic, and female-headed households with poor diversion rates.
[11]

Theory of Behavior; Search for Causes

It would be very convenient to
say that there is a causal relationship between the certain demographics and
recycling behavior and that these are the only factors influencing recycling
behavior.But behavioral psychologists
have shown that there is much more influencing whether or not a behavior, such
as recycling, is practiced than simple demographics.Attitudes, beliefs, social norms, economic
factors, and convenience factors towards recycling can override information
provided by DOS [12].

DOS’ 1999 market research[13]
told them that “knowledge about what is recyclable, and the Recycling Program’s
rules, is strong.Residents consider
themselves well informed about recycling and correctly identify the major
recyclables at very high rates (most over 90%)”. But DOS recognizes that “self-assessed
compliance rates do not match the measured diversion rate of 20% and capture of
50% for NYC.” [14]Confusion exists about what not to
recycle.One survey of Chinese residents
showed that over half of respondents rated the NYC recycling program as good or
very good, and another third called it fair.The main reason for negative ratings (42%) cited “there is still a lot
of trash everywhere”.Conversely, a
survey of Hispanic residents indicated that the expanded recycling program as
of 1999 vs. prior to the 1996 expansion) is better because it helps keep
neighborhoods clean (67%) vs. the general population (21%).Low-diversion neighborhoods (defined as
recycling at less than 12%) also rated the recycling program positively because
it helps create a clean neighborhood environment (36%) vs. the general
population (25%).However, low-diversion
neighborhoods were also found to mis-identify
materials as recyclable when they were not, and had a slightly less
enthusiastic view of the program (27%) vs. 33% for the general population.

In the aforementioned DOS study,
low-diversion districts’ residents’ views on compliance and enforcement were
overall the same as the general population with the majority believing that
recycling should be better enforced and low numbers of people thinking that “if
I did not recycle, no one would really know”.[15]

The questions are, why is there
so much difference in capture and diversion between the best and worst
districts in New York City, and how can the low-diversion districts be brought
up to the same level of capture and diversion rates as the best performing
districts?This would involve doubling the
capture rate and tripling the diversion rate of the lowest performing
districts.Barriers to recycling could
be one answer.Such barriers can include
differences in building design that makes it more difficult to recycle (e.g.,
tenants must bring recyclables downstairs, outside, or further away in a
housing complex vs. leaving recyclables in a recycling / chute room on their
floor), or uncooperative building management / superintendent that provides
insufficient space / cleanliness of recycling area that is poorly labeled.But cultural norms and educational levels
could be other important factors influencing how a community responds to
changes in government programs, illustrating that recycling behavior depends to
a great degree on attitudes towards the program.

Capture rates (the percentage of
targeted recyclables captured by the recycling program) in the DOS Residential
Recycling Diversion Report for June 2003 [16]were 21 to 35% in June 2002 but dropped to 15 to 21% in June 2003
in the worst 12 recycling districts.This drop was probably due to the decision to stop collecting plastic,
glass, and waxed paper containers in July 2002).There was also a drop of 10-12% in paper
diversion rate even though paper recycling was unaffected by the change in policy.The best 12 recycling districts also suffered
a drop in capture rates after plastic and glass recycling was dropped, but not
to the degree suffered in the low-diversion districts (2002: 39-59%; 2003:
49-68%).As with recycling (diversion)
rate, there is an enormous disparity between the best and worst neighborhoods
in the capture rate.Program changes
could have introduced confusion, difficulty in recycling, or irritation at the
changing rules, disrupting established routines, perhaps for a long time.

So, what are the reasons for the
large disparity in recycling in New York City
neighborhoods?Is it strictly cultural,
involving social norms and beliefs about one’s personal responsibility to
recycle?Or is recycling participation
affected by the ability and opportunity to participate, barriers, and
experiences with recycling?If the
latter, there are policy decisions that could be made to remove barriers and
improve participation.

The CUNY study

Over two thousand New Yorkers,
most from the best and worst recycling districts were surveyed by about 50 students
from Lehman and HunterColleges
of the City University of New York in Fall, 2003 and Spring, 2004.The two-page survey queried respondents about
the location of and conditions in their recycling area, the cleanliness of
their neighborhood as evidenced by the condition of corner baskets and litter, time
it took to get to recycling and garbage areas, home ownership, their knowledge
of the recycling program, why they don’t recycle, and demographics.

Data Gathering

Surveys were administered in
three time frames:Fall, 2003, late
Winter 2004, and Spring, 2004.These
were administered on the streets of New York City,
primarily in the Bronx, Brooklyn,
and Manhattan in districts where
the diversion rate was high (above 24% or so) or low (below 15% or so).The students selected one community board
district in the list of the best and another in the list of the worst recycling
areas, to survey 25-30 passersby randomly in each area, to avoid statistical
bias, and to tabulate and compare the results.In most cases the students had the respondents fill out the survey on a
clipboard.In a few cases where it would
ease data collection (they thought due to limitations of literacy) the student
read the questions and answers to the person and wrote down their
selections.

Diversion rates are reported by
DOS for each of the 59 Sanitation districts on a monthly basis, so for surveys
administered in the Fall, 2003 time period, diversion rates for October,
November and December were averaged for each district.Surveys administered in the first three
months of 2004 were assigned diversion rates averaging January, February and
March rates for each district, and survey data collected from April through
June, assigned diversion rates were averaged for those months.During this nine-month period, diversion
rates ranged from 5.3% to 30% in different parts of the City.Part of the huge range was due to a program
change in April, 2004, where glass was added back to the recycling program and
recycling pickups were restored to weekly from biweekly, but even prior to 2002
the range in diversion was under 10 to over 30%.

Study Results

The number of 2-page surveys
that was verified and completed was 2352 over the three time frames.Some respondents did not answer all
questions, so the following data may be from slightly smaller sample
sizes.

Table 1.Tabulations of responses from all respondents,
all time frames, all locations

The recycling area is not reasonably clean

22.0%

There are not enough recycling bins

36.6%

The bins are not emptied often enough

33.2%

Don’t feel comfortable going to the recycling area

25.7%

Recycling area is not located conveniently on the way out
of the building

29.5%

Did not know:

Plastic
bottles are recycled

7.6%

Plastic
bags are not recycled

55.1%

Metal
objects are recycled

43.2%

Phone
books are recycled

36.1%

Had wrong answer for recycling status of Glass bottles at
the time of survey

20.6%

Pre-April wrong
answer for glass bottles = 58.8%.

Post-April
wrong answer for glass bottles = 16.9%

Main reason for not recycling all recyclable items every
time:

I forget to
recycle

41.7%

I don’t think I
should have to recycle

7.2%

It is difficult
for me to get to the recycling area

5.4%

The recycling
area is unpleasant

5.1%

I’m confused
about what to recycle

20.5%

I don’t have time
to go to the recycling area

9.7%

See overflowing litter baskets in immediate neighborhood
every day or frequently

31.1%

See a lot of litter on the streets or sidewalks in
neighborhood every day or frequently

35.2%

Breaking down the datasets into categories of similar
diversion rate it is possible to characterize variables a little more
meaningfully:

Answered 100% Correct of what is recyclable in NYC’s program
(five questions):

2%

where avg diversion rate is 5.6%

21.2%

where avg diversion rate is 30%

But these results contradict DOS’ finding that “Majorities
correctly identify the major recyclables, most at very high rates (over
90%).High knowledgeability
is seen regardless of where residents live, what type of housing they reside
in, or whether English or Spanish is their primary language”.[17]

A lot of litter is seen frequently or every day in the
neighborhood

68.6%

in lowest diversion rate districts(5.6% diversion)

36.6%

in highest diversion rate districts (30% diversion)

Correlations

In order to perform correlations on data where there is a
yes/no answer on a survey, the data (pre- and post-April, 2004) were first
grouped into 29 categories of diversion rate ranging from 5.6% to 30%.Then these data were transformed such that
the percent of those respondents in each diversion category answering
affirmatively to a question would be averaged for each question.For each survey question (variable) there
were 29 data points, one representing each diversion category and the average
percent answering yes for the question within that diversion category.A number of variables were correlated with
diversion rate using the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation (see Table 2).A number of moderate to very strong positive
or negative relationships were found (see Table 3 for interpretation) [18]Note that the p values for each are very low,
indicating certainty about the results.

Another of the factors strongly correlated (.728) with high
diversion rate is having a recycling room on the same floor. Table 5 shows other factors moderately to
strongly correlated with having a recycling room on the same floor:

Aside from the demographic
correlations with diversion rate, established with prior research, the above
indicates that those who have a recycling room on their floor, have enough bins
in a clean recycling area, who own their apartments, and are not Housing
Authority tenants, and who don’t often see a lot of litter on the streets, are
most apt to live in higher diversion rate districts.Though many of the factors that are strongly
correlated with high diversion rates cannot be changed by City policy (e.g.,
demographics), some of these factors that directly or indirectly are related to
high diversion rate can be affected by City enforcement policy and
funding.

Table 7.Other positive correlations

rp

Having a recycling room on same floor and White

.795

.000

Recycling area unpleasant and See overflowing garbage cans
on street daily

.758

.000

Recycling area unpleasant and See a lot of litter on
streets daily

.687

.001

Getting 100% correct on recycling knowledge questions and
White

.656

.001

No Building Recycling areaand NYC Housing authority

.644

.002

Recycling room reasonably clean and White

.631

.002

Not wanting to recycle and living in apt bldg 25-50 units

.621

.003

Frequently see overflowing garbage cans and Hispanic

.607

.004

Having a basement recycling area and Hispanic

.599

.004

Difficult to recycle and Don’t know where recycling area
is

.531

.013

Recycling Rooms on the floorand Recycling area is clean

.525

.015

Recycling Rooms on the floor and There are enough
recycling bins

,521

.015

Difficult to recycle and frequently see garbage cans
overflowing

.514

.017

Middle School and 20% knowledge questions correct

.513

.017

Recycling Rooms on the floor and Own apartment

.505

.020

Having enough recycling bins and White

.493

.023

Frequently see a lot of litter on streets and Hispanic

.475

.030

Live in NYC Housing Authority and Hispanic

.474

.030

Live in NYC Housing Authority and got 20% knowledge
questions correct

.470

.031

Difficult to recycle and frequently see a lot of litter on
streets

.444

.044

Forgetting to recycle and being Asian

.427

.053

Live in NYC Housing Authority and got 0%knowledge questions correct

.412

.064

Table 8.Other
negative correlations

rp

No Time to recycle and Highest Education: Middle school

-.734

.000

Correct answer to Glass bottles recycled and Middle School

-.727

.000

Unpleasant and Rarely see a lot of litter on streets

-.723

.000

Not wanting to recycle and being Asian

-.644

.002

Having a recycling room on same floor and Black

-.642

.002

No Building Recycling areaand Correct answer to glass bottle recycling

-.623

.003

Forgetting to recycle and Highest Education: Community
College

-.612

.003

NYC Housing Authority and Feel comfortable going to recycling
area

-.585

.005

Seeing a lot of litter on streets every day and White

-.560

.008

100% correct answers to five knowledge questions and
Hispanic

-.552

.009

Difficult to recycle and Recycling area located
conveniently

-.505

.020

Reasonably clean recycling area and Hispanic

-.502

.020

Difficult to recycle and White

-.477

.029

Unpleasant and Recycling area clean

-.472

.031

NYC Housing Authority and Correct answer to Glass bottles
recycled

-.473

.030

NYC Housing Authority and 100% correct answers to
knowledge questions

-.472

.031

Enough recycling bins and Hispanic

-.465

.034

Rarely see a lot of litter on streets and Black

-.430

.052

Difficult to recycle and Enough Recycling Bins

-.425

.055

Difficult to recycle and Own apartment

-.420

.058

Forgetting to recycle and Not Wanting to Recycle

-.412

.064

Conclusions
and Recommendations

DOS has taken a first step in
improving, or at least stabilizing, recycling participation by recommending in
its solid waste management plan that the recycling program be kept stable,
since capricious changes and reversals confuse and anger many residents and
building supers.Further it has
recommended ongoing research into the attitudes and reasons for non-recycling
behavior.

The above research suggests that
diversion rates are related not only to cultural issues, but also to the
existence of barriers to recycling (unclean / unsavory conditions in the
recycling area and the neighborhood in general).Diversion rates might be increased via identification
and reduction of any barriers to recycling via better enforcement of existing
laws (e.g., require building managers to provide sufficient bins and servicing
for them in well-lit, safe, clean, rodent-free areas, conveniently located) and
tailoring educational signage to different types of building layout.

It doesn’t seem to matter
whether a person lives in a high or low-diversion rate district; people are
confused about the recycling program and forget to recycle.This means that ongoing citywide campaigns to
remind people to recycle and to clarify the aspects of the recycling program
are both needed.Increasing the
frequency of outreach and differentiating the type of educational approach
(i.e. use not only printed literature, but other ways of reaching these target
populations with greater frequency than heretofore), is clearly necessary to
penetrate and convince those non-recyclers to get with the program.The
students’ survey experiences in the poor recycling neighborhoods suggest that DOS
should not assume that everyone has an equal understanding and motivation to
recycle. The recycling program would be
more effective if it were made even simpler than it has for those residents
with very low educational experience and if the educational devices were tailored
to take advantage of differences in cultural values.

Street corner basket collections
and street sweeping appear to have a relationship with recycling rates.These findings would suggest that the City’s
recycling program would benefit by increasing street cleaning and litter basket
servicing in poor diversion areas.Improving the frequency and quality of street sweeping, better
enforcement of sidewalk cleaning rules, and more frequent litter basket
service, may increase neighborhood pride and inspire more personal
responsibility for recycling, improving attitudes about recycling in the
low-diversion neighborhoods of New York City.

[11] Clarke, Marjorie J.,
“Optimizing Recycling in All the Neighborhoods of New York City:The Roles of Demographics, Education,
Barriers, and Program Changes”, Nineteenth Annual International Conference on
Solid Waste Technology and Management, Philadelphia, PA,March
21 – 24, 2004.

[12] Clarke, Marjorie J. , Testing the
Effectiveness of Supermarket-Based Environmental Shopping Campaigns in Changing
Consumer Behavior in New York City, Doctoral Dissertation, City University of
New York, New York, NY.September, 1999.